Slow-roll inflation in f(R,T) gravity and a modified Starobinsky-like inflationary model

Understand

In this work, we studied the slow-roll approximation of cosmic inflation within the context of $f(R,T)$ gravity, where $R$ is the scalar curvature, and $T$ is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor.

• By choosing a minimal coupling between matter and gravity, we obtained the modified slow-roll parameters, the scalar spectral index ($n_s$), the tensor spectral index ($n_{\textrm{T}}$), and the tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r$).
• We computed these quantities for a general power-law potential, Natural & Quartic Hilltop inflation, and the Starobinsky model, plotting the trajectories on the $(n_s,r)$ plane.
• We found that one of the parameters of Natural/Hilltop models is non-trivially modified.